1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a manual window regulator, particularly to a manual window regulator for vehicles.
2. Description of the Related Art
Various types of manual window regulators have been proposed and put into practical use. On the other hand, nowadays, power window regulators which drive the window glass by the power of a motor have become popular. In general, it is desirable that a manual window regulator and a power window regulator have substantially the same basic construction so that either one of these two types of window regulator may be obtained through a simple replacement of some of the parts.
A window regulator which meets such a requirement is disclosed in Japanese Utility Model Publication No. 53-25933. This window regulator is designed to be easily changed to either a wire-driven power window regulator or a manual window regulator. When assembled as a manual window regulator, the window regulator is provided with a handle to which is fixed a pinion meshing with a toothed wheel capable of winding and unwinding a wire thereby driving a window. In contrast, when the window regulator is intended for use as a power window regulator, the abovementioned pinion is driven by a motor through a worm reduction gear including a worm wheel coaxially fixed to the pinion.
This window regulator, assembled as a power window regulator, can be easily modified into a manual window regulator. In the power window regulator configuration, the motor is fixed to a stationary part on the door so as to transmit the driving power to the window glass which is to be moved. The transmission of power is conducted through a transmission mechanism which employs a large number of parts and, hence, occupies a considerably large portion of the space inside the door panel.
To remedy this problem, in recent years, a so-called self-drive type power window regulator has been proposed as in Japanese Utility Model Laid-Open Publication No. 60-68282 and 60-286485, in which a driving motor having a pinion is mounted on the window glass with the pinion meshing with a rack which is installed to extend in the direction of movement of the window glass, whereby the window glass is propelled directly by the power of the motor.
This type of power window regulator is advantageous in that the number of parts is reduced as compared with an ordinary power window. In addition, the space inside the door panel is not substantially occupied because only the rack is fixedly mounted in this space.
This type of power window regulator, however, incurs the following problem when it is to be modified into a manual window regulator. Namely, a mechanism which is entirely different from that in an ordinary manual window regulator is required for the purpose of transmitting the torque of the handle to the pinion on the motor which moves, for example, up and down together with the window.
Thus, modification of the self-driving type power window into a manual window regulator is not easy.